Hello, I used to Subdivision modeling with softimage XSI, and I see now that blender 2.60 looks already very good, so I’m trying to migrate to it. I would be very happy for some help how to emulate or work-arround some typickal tools or workflow habbits I’m used to from XSI.
First two things:
1 )Bevel - I don’t see anything like the function “Bevel” for verticles, edges and polygons. It’s not the same as Bevel modifier used to round edges. Bevel in XSI is used different way and for different purpose - as a tool to create geometry.
2 ) “Crease” vertex - In XSI there is “Mark vertex/edge hard” which cause SubSurf to be hard and touch control hull in the point/edge. In Blender there is “Crease Edge”, however, this is not so usefull becaues vertex at the ends of edge are still smooth. So you can’t for example make sharp spike (like dragon theeth or spear) by this technique.
Sure, you can ad there more control poin’t to sincrease curvature, but this is not good because
a) you than have more controlponts ant it’s harder to edit than with 1 control pont
b) there is no “bevel” dunction, so it’s quite slow to a these ponints
is there something like “knife tool” to cut polygons like in XSI. I’ve seen something in help for Belnder 2.4 but it looks like missing in blender 2.6.
In general, looks to me like meany functions from 2.4 help I can’t find in blender 2.6.
(I never tried blender 2.4 or older, i just reed the help ,because there is nou help for 2.6)
Most of these shortcomings are due to the lack of ngon support in Blender. This is being addressed with the work being done on Bmesh, tools like bevel and the knife tool are dependent on the completion and merge of Bmesh.
If you’d like to get you hands on some test builds that include this system I’d recommend going to graphicall.org for the latest development versions, and search for Bmesh builds.
Be patient… it will come. One of Blender’s key strengths is it’s community, it’s under constant development so new features appear at break-neck speed.
trying to complete the answer above:
-there are now a knife tool addon you can enable and have good results, (but not that good because of lack of ngons).
-there are bevel tool addon will give you good results.
for blender version equipped with these addons here: (http://www.graphicall.org/bat3a) for windows or visit the build page to know it’s included addon
I didn’t realize that there are no n-gons, Bmesh looks cool, I’ll probably wait until it will be fully supported in standard instalation.
However the crease vertex (sharp vertex in Subdivision surface ) is another topic, I guess. Is it also planed to be included or is there other option how to achieve the same effect?
